Okay, that title was just to catch your eye. I really don't care about the Central Terminal much either way. But I do care about that time when they had unmasked children sweeping up nasty debris.

During my rigorous search of the internet to find links to the site I came up with this forum talking about me and my journal. Michael Miller begins by refering to my article about the terminal (e:paul,31144) last year that criticized the use of unprotected child labor in a cleanup effort at the terminal. I would like to take this time to bring some more attention to the situation. My favorite is the death threat at the bottom of this entry that I highlighted from Mark Lewandowski if The 107th Air Refueling Wing

I can't believe that these people cared about what I said enough for the conversation to develop so deeply. I have a connection to the building too. Yes,my family arrived from Italy via the Central Station and settled in Buffalo. I still believe having unprotected workers in an unventilated area, to preserve people's memories si ridiculous. What about the health of the children. They are at an age when expopsure is really risky.

MICHAEL MILLER mmiller at mandtbank.com
Thu Dec 16 08:14:10 EST 2004

Hi guys! I just found this blog from the Elmwood Strip website. He
describes the terminal as in crappy condition and "toxic". It pretty
much blasts us for allowing a child to sweep the floors, unmasked. He
also links to our site. I don't feel that replying to this blogger will
do anything positive, but we should take extreme care to avoid these
possible situations in the future.

from: [Pr] Bad Publicity

This guy has a lot of personal issues and could use some "be nice pills" for Christmas. I am surprised that he remains in the Western New York area since he is willing to give up so easily. I would not respond to any negatives unless they made the normal news outlets.

He does have one very valid point about the paper masks. They do not offer a sufficient level of protection for anyone. I would suggest that at the absolute minimum a 3M mask that has a N95 rating be used but of course a respirator and goggles are the better choice. There is no doubt that asbestos is in the building but it is also all around as is radon and many other human unfriendly chemicals.

The picture of the kid with the broom looks very staged notice the area appears to be fairly clean so I would think that he was not deeply involved in the clean up and someone gave him the broom for a cute photo.

We all assume a degree of chance in everything we do in life. Getting behind a steering wheel, walking down stairs without holding the railing etc. But we can also freely choose what level of protection to use. It would be great to have the bucks to use professionals for all the clean ups but then again it would be great to have a good developer fall from the skies with a ton of cash.

Not-so-ancient proverb says, "Blogs are like buttholes. Everyone has one and most of them stink." You can't get upset about one person's opinion. In fact, there's lots of people out there that share the opinion that the Terminal should be torn down. There's [hopefully] more people that feel it should be saved.

You can take the same picture of the kid sweeping and put a caption such as,
"Neighborhood kids help out restoring Buffalo landmark" and you get a
completely different take on it.

r

It is obvious that this individual has abused the privilege of access the
building to take pictures etc.

The "workers" are families taking pride in their neighborhood.

I guess just because he never had any memories of the place, do to the fact
he said it wasn't around that long, he should not refuse the terminal's past and future existence. (Gee based on his logic, I guess that World War II
was meaningless because it only lasted 5 years, and therefore no memories.)

I hope I don't run into this person anywhere......I'll tie this F***ing
idiot to the active tracks behind the building to give him a memorable experience. Link from Mark.Lewandowski at nyniag.ang.af.mil

The health issues are valid. Has a trained/educated professional been consulted regarding hazardous materials in the building and how to remove properly/safely? If not there should be and if we do have qualified personel on this we should advertise it (website to start?).
Beyond that the guy's opinions are very narrow minded and short sighted. The fact that he fails to see the difference in the aeshtetic qualities of the architecture of the Central Terminal versus the Airport prove it. Also it's that type of "why does anybody care" mentality that has caused so many roadblocks to progress in WNY (new Peace bridge?).
This is not worth resopnding to directly but maybe he has done us a favor in reminding us what we are up against and we need to be careful.
Sorry I'm so long winded!

The air and water quality was certified as safe in 2003, before the
public events began. I have the results on file. We will probably retest
this season, as per a suggestion made by Jeff Ingersoll.

This guy (blog) obviously never grew up and found that his "play" palace has
fallen into the hands of a mature responsible group of Adults that have proven
... to many ... they can make a difference! He is probably a current or ex
city govt. official that left the landmark terminal to the forces neglect and
deterioration and hopes to cover his tracks!

(e:matthew) and I bought so many clothes. So now we finally have a new wardrobe. I got the interview sweater I needed to complete the outfit. Now I am confident and ready to go. I wish that shopping online wasn't so hit or miss. I would rather do that from now on. At least I have some respectable clothing to wear.

Here are the interview pants. Maybe I should have bought a creme colored sweater.

I got this sweater instead, although I just did the colors in photoshop, so they don't match the clothing exactly right. It goes good with he pants.

Here is the shirt and tie that goes with it. I also bought a fancy shirt from Calvin Klein but I ma thinking it is too over the top at $49.95. It is, however, the only slim 15 and 1/2 neck 34 length arm shirt I have ever seen.

Finding clothes that fit me is impossible. I have 3 pairs of nice brown pants to work with. I still need a shirt. I have a tie I like, the problem left is the jacket. It is impossible to find one my size. I am thinking about using this one. Unfortunately, when I wear it closed I look like fivel. Is it acceptable to wear an open sports jacket to an interview. Maybe I need a manual for this!!

I know that the weird positionI am in, trying to hold the camera doesn't help at all with the decision. I also realize I need a belt and an iron.

(e:ajay,339) Senator Sanatorum wants the government will stop offering the weather in XML format?!? For those of you that don't understand this, XML is some crazy superhightech this it is basically a standard way of documenting information.

The NSA currenly offers weather data in a format like this.

<weather>
<temp>59</temp>
<wind>5mph</wind>
</weather>

The little stamps (tags) before and after each section of data just make it easy for us to know when the data starts and begins and what it means.

The reason Senator Sanatorum wants to stop this is because other companies sell the exact same information and they have clearly paid him off. We already paid for the government to produce the information, it is avaiable to us in so many other public formats, why should we not be able to use it for without having to pay again.

Senator Sanatorum is clearly working on behalf of the copmpaies that want to resell us out information. It makes me sick that he is trying to hide behind the context that we re modernizing by removing this service. It is also so carefully constructed so that the average non-tech person would think that the current services were outdated, which theya re not. They are the forefront of modern information technology.

I seriously cannot belive Senator Sanatorum is so evil. He keeps topping himself, no pun intended. I knew about Senator Sanatorum's repressive social policies but somehow that is expectable to me. But this is insane. I can't believe that any American citizen, even (e:jasonsback) , would agree to this accept the people that re-sell the weather we paid for in the first place.

The most outrageous part is that if Senator Sanatorum is sucessful in removing the weather information that we paid for from the public sphere, it is not going to stop most web designers and information scientists. The people that understand the web and make the web don't need the freakin' XML tags to get the data, it just makes everything nice and easy. Not to mention that if Senator Sanatorum si sucessful in stealing our weather feeds from us, every hacker will be even more interested in scraping the data.

I am so sick of services like that being privatized. We pay for them!! If it Senator Sanatorum sucessfully steals our the weather feeds that we paid for from us, I am going to make a free buffalo weather feed in protest. It would be so easy. Maybe we can start a movement of web programmers that do that in lots of cities. Maybe I will do it anyways, seeing as it sounds fun.

Here is part of the press release from Senator Sanatorum's ssite.

Santorum Proposes to Modernize National Weather Service to Better Serve Public

Washington, DC - U.S. Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA), Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, today introduced the National Weather Services Duties Act of 2005 to clarify the duties and responsibilities of the National Weather Service (NWS) within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

"With the support of my colleagues, we can pass this legislation to modernize the description of the National Weather Service's roles within the national weather enterprise, so that it reflects today's reality in which the National Weather Service and the commercial weather industry both play important parts in providing weather products and services to the nation," said Senator Santorum.

I went to the store to get a nice outfit for my job interview. They measured me and laughed. The worker said, " we only have one suit in your (implied freakish) size" I decided that the store simply wasn't good enough and switched my target toshirt and tie. I was willing to spend $500 for an answer, an immediate answer - so I headed over to banana republic. They have nice clothes that fit me. At least the pants do. I where 30/32 or 30/34. Is that really so freakish.

I ended up buying two pairs of pants. The interview pants are brown stripped. I love them. Unfortunately they didn't have any shirts or jackets that went. Kaufmans did but I bought the wrong size, argh.

I ended up getting a Banana Republic card to get 15% off. It was probably a bad idea, but it sounded fun to have and the girl asking was so cute. They gave me a $1200 limit. Not buying all 12 things you could get for $1200. It was hard to resist. I haven't bought any new clothes in two years The mall absolutely freaks me out.

Afterwards, I decided to stop at Amvets on George Urban to see if they had a tie. The 60s 70s ties are back at the mall. But amvets is gone. How bad is it when Amvets has to close down!

[17:43] paulSideKick: I just got a banana republic card [17:43] paulSideKick: Something is seriously wrong with me [17:43] paulSideKick: I feel so capitalist [17:43] gametheory2k1: haha [17:47] paulSideKick: So $200 [17:47] paulSideKick: Two pairs of pants [17:47] paulSideKick: That seems outrageous [17:47] paulSideKick: Considering [17:47] paulSideKick: All of my other clothes cost $200 togther [17:47] paulSideKick: Maybe [17:48] paulSideKick: I hate how they use hot woman to sell things [17:48] paulSideKick: I wiould be way easier [17:48] paulSideKick: If they were ugly [17:48] gametheory2k1: haha [17:49] gametheory2k1: no, that's the easiest way to keep me out of a store [17:49] paulSideKick: The sales girl was hottastic [17:49] paulSideKick: I haven't been shoppoing years [17:49] paulSideKick: It is insane paulsidekick: I am so scared of stores paulsidekick: I want everything now paulsidekick: Thank god nothing is my size